Antiheroes
by ZinthosMay1
Summary: We've never had the *best* intentions, but that doesn't mean we want to blow up the world or anything. We're not a special team like the Justice League, we aren't superheroes; we're just a bunch of high schoolers with a bunch of high schooler problems who like to sneak out at night and goof off. So how come we always manage to get into trouble?
1. Chapter 1

_Beep! Beep! Beep! Be-_

I shut off the alarm with a yawn and sat up in bed. Why did I set an alarm again? The bright numbers glared at me, and the only thing I could really comprehend was that 6:32 was too early to be doing anything.

 _Boop!_

The computer sounded off, probably Skype or Facebook or something. I closed my eyes and rubbed a hand over my face, it was entirely too early for anyone to be awake. Who was messaging me?

 _Boop!_

I could smell cooked breakfast things through the door, was mom up too? Was something important happening today? Something important was probably happening.

 _Boop! Boop! Boop!_

"God damn internet who the FUCK is talking to me?!"

 _Boop! Boop! Boop! Boop! Boop! Boop!_

"Alright, alright ALRIGHT!" I shouted, throwing my pillow at the computer; if it wasn't important I was going to kill someone.

 **Bees?_BEEEEEES: Hey Hero, are you ready?**

 **Bees?_BEEEEEES: dude you need to get up I seriously have no time for your laziness**

 **Bees?_BEEEEEES: Hero**

 **Bees?_BEEEEEES: Hero**

 **Bees?_BEEEEEES: oh come on why arent you awake**

 **Bees?_BEEEEEES: heeeeeeeroooooo...**

 **Bees?_BEEEEEES: VALERIE**

 **Bees?_BEEEEEES: VALERI**

 **Bees?_BEEEEEES: VALER**

 **Bees?_BEEEEEES: VALE**

 **Bees?_BEEEEEES: VAL**

 **casually-turning-purple: what the fuck do you want**

 **Bees?_BEEEEEES: FINALLY I SWEAR TO GOD**

 **Bees?_BEEEEEES: Get out of bed peasant we have to get to school. I pulled some strings to be your liaison and if you don't get here on time I'm gonna knock out your teeth.**

And then it all clicked.

"FUCK!" I shouted, jumping back from my computer and hurling myself toward my closet. "Gotta get clothes, gotta get clothes, where's the stupid goddamn uniform for this stupid goddamn fucking private school, god dammit god dammit god DAMMIT!"

My mom was laughing at me from down the hall, of course she was. I hadn't acted like this in months.

I was halfway in my uniform- accursed skirt I swear to god- as I typed a quick "thx, fuck off" to QB. I then threw my jacket on and ran out to the kitchen, where my mom was at the counter looking through a pile of what were probably important papers and eating some scrambled eggs.

"Good morning, Valerie." I said something, but neither of us could make it out through my sloppy eating. I was gonna be fucking LATE!

The eggs were gone in two minutes, and I was running out the door immediately afterwards-

"Ahem." My mom coughed at me, not looking up from her place at the counter. I froze. "You do realize that I'm driving you to school, right?" I finally decided to wake up, and sighed. Of course she was my ride to school, I didn't even know where it was! "You should go make sure you have everything you need, we're leaving in ten minutes."

My mother was the calmest, most level-headed woman I'd ever met. She had some fancy position at Wayne Enterprises, and was recently transferred to the central office; that's why we'd moved from a cozy two bedroom apartment in northern Kentucky to a somewhat similar cozy two bedroom apartment in Gotham City.

Along with the new paycheck and new living spaces, I'd also been offered a scholarship to an otherwise unaffordable private school for rich kids. From what I understood, it was because my mom was awesome, worked at the central office, and had a kid between the ages 12 and 18. I wasn't sure if all people with these qualifications were given this opportunity, and frankly, I didn't care. It was just another school to me.

At this point I'd been in Gotham for about a month and a half; most of my stuff was still in boxes. I didn't particularly want to go through everything, and I guess I didn't really _need_ to. It's not like there was anything I needed to take, other than my backpack and my phone, and I already had those... somewhere... Dammit.

]/:\\[

By some miracle, I'd managed to find my stuff before we had to go. As soon as my mom had pulled our tiny silver car into the road, I plugged in my ear buds and zoned out to some random soundtrack, just staring off into space. All was peaceful for a good ten minutes before my mom nudged me, and I paused the calmness.

"Huh?" I asked, wrapping up my ear buds and putting them in my pocket.

"Just seeing if everything's alright," she replied. "You're going to meet up with your internet friends?" I nodded. I'd met a couple of people on Tumblr who also lived in Gotham, namely QB and her sibling, Sage. They also went to the Academy and had promised to walk me through the place. To be honest, I just really lucked out.

"Yeah. QB said something about being my liaison? I guess it's important; she'll be showing me around, at least."

"That's good. I'm glad you aren't going in there without knowing anybody."

"I know _some_ people, I met some guys at band camp too." Those people were just acquaintances, I barely remembered any of their names.

Mom smiled. "But still, are you going to be alright?" I swallowed thickly; suddenly my throat was really dry.

"Yeah, I'll be fine," I said. I didn't really sound sure of myself, I'm not sure why. "I've got ways of blending in."

We'd reached the school by then and were in the drop-off line. Mom smiled again, mussing up my hair with one hand.

"If you say so. I'm picking you up after band practice, right?" I nodded. We were at the front of the line. "Alright. Have a good day, sweetheart!"

I swung my backpack over my shoulder, and took a deep breath; everything flashed purple. Looking around, I imagined a big bubble surrounding me, going forty- no, fifty feet in every direction. I could sense dozens of people already, and I wasn't even in the main pavilion yet... I took another deep breath.

Nobody could tell. Nobody could tell. Nobody could tell...

I got out of the car and started walking up the sidewalk. My mom drove away. Nothing else happened. I let out a hollow little laugh; nobody was giving me a second glance. I smiled, this was good.

]/:\\[

QB was a lot shorter than I'd expected. In my head I'd always though she was somewhere around my height, 5'3". We'd only ever seen each other through a computer screen, so I'd never really been able to tell. In reality, she was probably 4'9", 4'10" tops. Otherwise, she was exactly as I remembered; true to the Scandinavian stereotype, she was incredibly pale, and platinum blonde hair- almost white in direct sunlight- that went down past her shoulders. Her eyes were light brown, and she had the most sarcastic sass-mouth in the world. Her real name was Quest Blomberg, Quest coming from her family's love of strange names, and Blomberg from her Scandinavian roots.

Sage was there too, kind of standing off to the side while QB hugged me. Sage had short, boyish hair that was dyed lavender, and bright blue eyes. Xir cheeks had extreme freckles, and while xe was taller and more mature looking than QB, I couldn't help but think xe was absolutely adorable.

From what I understood, QB's parents had adopted Sage when both xe and QB were 4; they'd immediately taken to each other, and one could rarely be seen without the other. From what QB had drilled into my brain when she first introduced us, Sage was agender, and preferred xe/xir pronouns. QB also made it very clear that anyone who harmed her precious Sage was to die a slow and painful death.

After the initial meeting and hugging, we discussed schedules and the like. Two miracles in one day, it was discovered that we all had almost the exact same schedules. We were all taking AP science and social studies classes (environmental science and human geography if you want to be technical about it) all year.

According to QB, we'd switch AP classes every day, giving more time for homework and such. Math and lit- accelerated and honors respectively- were every day, but each class would only be 45 minutes long. I had different teachers for lit and math, but Sage assured me that the ones if ended up with were known especially for their niceness.

QB and I had band together both semesters while Sage had chorus, and even though we were all in the same classroom for our foreign language class, we were all learning different languages.

As expected, the first day of classes was average; we already had homework in science, I doodled throughout human geography and lit, and band was... Well, it was band. The director, Mr. Fuller, spent the first half of class going over the syllabus while the percussionists played random things in the background, and the trombonists had loud and lengthy conversations about nothing important. The last half of class was just sight reading, which was easy enough. QB had a blast back with the mallet players, constantly pecking some anime theme or another. I as an oboist just sat awkwardly away from the flute section and tried not to punch anybody.

]/:\\[

Nothing particularly notable happened until after lunch. I had just finished washing my tray and was about to sit back down when a redheaded girl tapped my shoulder.

"Excuse me, are you Valerie Sullivan?" she asked, looking down at a paper in her hand.

"Uh, yeah?" I responded, turning to her.

"Great! My name is Barbara Gordon, and I was told to bring you to the nurse's office." She held out her hand, and I reluctantly shook it. Barbara was about my height with bright red hair that went down to her shoulders and blue eyes. She seemed nice enough, I guess, but there was just something nudging me in the back of my mind, something I couldn't place.

"Wait, the nurse's office?" I asked slowly. "Why would they need you t- oh." I scowled, this wouldn't end well. "Alright, lead the way."

She brought me through the halls to a set of offices, pretty close to the front of the school and the cafeteria. There wasn't much talk on the way there, aside from if I shared any classes with her and other attempted small talk- though apparently we were in the same academic classes.

When we got to the office, Barbara opened the door without knocking and called out, "Ms. Davis, I brought Valerie."

The room was slightly... underwhelming. Considering the extravagance of the rest of the school, I'd honestly been expecting something grand from the nurse's office, something so horrifyingly pristine that it would just scream _RICH KIDS!_

It was actually quite small, just a concrete cube with a seperate bathroom on one side, and it was fairly bland. It was almost like any other nurse's office, aside from the top-notch equipment that was scattered around. There were the same medical posters about choking, strokes, the usual things. It was comforting in all it's normalcy.

"Ah, excellent!" Ms. Davis exclaimed, jumping up from her desk. She was extremely tall, probably over six feet. Her greying hair hung in a ponytail, and she had a pair of glasses that she folded up and put in one of the pockets of her lab coat. "Could you just wait over there, Valerie?" she asked, gesturing to one of the chairs against the wall. "And you can head back to class Barbara, thank you for getting her." Barbara nodded and left.

Ms. Davis spent a minute walking around the room looking at her papers, finally grabbing a large bottle of something from her cabinet of student prescriptions and handing it to me.

"You'll need to come here every day right after lunch to apply your medicine," she told me, walking back to her desk. "Are you going to need privacy to use it? I don't see the burn anywhere."

"Uh, yes ma'am," I replied quietly, staring at the tube of ointment in my hand. "Could I do it in the restroom?"

"Of course, of course, and please, take your time." I liked Ms. Davis. She seemed sincere, if a bit scattered.

Taking a deep breath, I went into the restroom. Only after I'd double checked the lock to be sure it wasn't broken (it was a filthy rich private school, of course it wasn't), did I twist off the cap and let my bubble down for a bit.

]/:\\[

School ended after foreign language- rather uneventful in itself- but none of us left until marching band practice was over. QB and I were actually in the marching band; I played the glockenspiel in the pit- the front ensemble if you wanted to be fancy- while QB played the smallest base drum in the drum line. This gave us a sort of friendly rivalry, seeing how (generally) the two sections had a... great disliking for each other.

Since Sage was in chorus, xe technically _could_ have joined, but xe instead opted to watch from the box with Mr. Fuller. Sage was lucky, xe _probably_ got water whenever xe wanted, and I'm pretty sure there was air conditioning up there too.

"Alright, reset at the do-si-do!" the drum major shouted, sending everyone back to their spots from thirty measures earlier. "Front ensemble, you're at measure... 57? 65. You know, the _bum bum bum bum baah, bah, bum bum buh buh BUM!"_ I shook my head and stood up... While everyone was being very efficient with learning the music and the steps, it was honestly the most laid back band I'd ever seen.

Everyone was happy when it was finally over, because the temperature had snuck up on us; by the time we were allowed to leave, it was probably over a hundred degrees- you think I'm kidding don't you.

"So do you think we can hang out any this week?" QB asked, walking with me to the car-rider lane.

"We could probably hang out today, my mom doesn't really care as long as I don't have homework and nothing blows up."

"I can't guarantee anything," QB quipped, grinning and nudging my shoulder. I just scoffed at her and smiled.

]/:\\[

Mother was pleased to have company, as it confirmed that I did indeed have a social life. After pleasantries were exchanged and parents were called, it was decided that QB and Sage would spend the night; they would show me around the city some, as long as we were back before ten.

What we told everyone is that QB showed me around to some of the more important landmarks, and then we went to the giant Toys r Us and bought toy swords because... why not?

I'm sure my mom would have regretted the decision to let us leave the house had she known what actually happened.

The evening started out as just that; QB and Sage were telling me about some of the significant cultural whatsits of Gotham, all while snacking on various foods from various street vendors. Eventually, we grew bored, and did end up in the Toys r Us. Unfortunately, there was no buying of anything.

"You will never defeat me, villain!" QB shouted at the top of her lungs, lunging at me with the foam sword.

"The only crime committed here is your thinking that you could ever leave this place alive!" I grinned and I shoved QB backwards and whacked her repeatedly with my own weapon.

Sage had attempted to separate us, the poor, innocent soul, but by the time the fighting died down we had somehow managed to knock over three shelves and a display of Legos.

Needless to say, we were thrown out. After that egregious display, Sage suggested that we take to the rooftops; apparently it was a fairly common occurrence for the two, seeing how they got me up one in less than two minutes despite my protests.

The city was nice, though, especially from up high. It was dark, which was apparently the perfect time to jump from roof to roof. We'd gone nearly half a block and up two more stories before Sage finally pulled the plug and made us sit down.

It was... nice.

"Hey, Hero," Sage said. "How many people are around?" I had to think for a minute, I was getting tired and it was harder to tell.

"Um, not many others? I think seven, and they're all downstairs." Xe nodded.

"You should relax," xe said, and QB nodded vigorously.

"Yeah, you're gonna wear yourself out and it's only the first day."

"It's just us, Hero, we aren't going to run away."

I sighed. Everything flashed purple. I blinked. My bubble popped.

I'd been able to see it all day- I couldn't brainwash myself- and even though they'd seen my burn before, I was still... twitchy.

The scar was anywhere from my natural skin color to a dull reddish brown depending on where you looked, covering the entire right side of my body from my eye to my toes. I'd had it for, what, half a year? Something like that; I'd spent several weeks sitting in the hospital recovering, then several more sitting at home recovering, and by the time I was done recovering I was too afraid of myself to give a shit about anything.

Other than my mother and my doctor, the Blomberg kids were the only ones who knew about it. They only knew about it because they were the only ones who I'd ever willingly had a video chat with, and I couldn't brainwash a camera. They were cool about it, which was great; I still wasn't. I was determined to hide it from everyone else.

Someone snapped their fingers in front of my eyes, and I was suddenly blinded by a white flash.

"Is she back yet?" QB asked from somewhere behind me. Sage was kneeling next to me, giving me a worried look.

"Wait, hunh?" I said, scrambling to turn around; I was still disoriented and seeing spots, and I ended up falling over.

"Yeah, she's back," Sage said, walking over to QB.

"Sweet!" QB grinned at me and held out her hands, flexing them and making a bright yellow bubble appear from nowhere. The bubble grew longer the farther out her hands went, and inside I saw a large pile of Nerf swords. Oh shit, this wasn't going to end well.

The second the bubble popped I lunged for the weapons, grabbing the first thing I could and rolling out of the way before QB could whack me. I spun around and blocked, and QB pushed towards me. I stepped back and swung the foam blade, disarming QB and then whacking her mercilessly.

She tried to summon another sword but I popped the bubble before anything could materialize inside.

"What, can't roll back three feet and get a sword? Come on, no powers!" I jeered. She rolled backwards over her shoulder, taking two swords and throwing one to Sage before blocking me.

"Why are you bringing me into this?" xe whined, holding the weapon at eye level and running at me. I dropped to a crouch and swiped at xir legs, then bending back almost ninety degrees to avoid a blow to my head. After rolling to the side I jumped up and disarmed QB yet again, only to get thwacked in the head by Sage. We exchanged blows for a bit before QB returned to the fight with two blades, determined to knock me down.

"Fight me!" she shouted, swiping at both of my sides. I quickly blocked, twisting her swords around each other until all three of them were bent beyond repair.

"I _am_ fighting you!" We charged for the sword pile, only to be stopped by Sage and xir glowing sword.

"Stop!" xe shouted, whacking us both in the head with the glowing foam sword; it didn't hurt my head, but my eyes were killing me. "I know we just started, and this fight could potentially go on for several hours," xe began, kicking the remaining swords behind her. "But it's already nine forty-three."

QB didn't even hesitate, she grabbed our hands and a yellow bubble engulfed us.

"This might feel a bit weird," she warned just before a loud pop went off. There was a flash, and everything around the bubble looked white and distorted, until somehow we were in my bedroom, dropping about half a foot to various places on the bed and floor.

I felt nauseous, and promptly went to hang my head over the toilet, listening to Sage chastise xir sister from the other room. The day'd had its moments, of course, but when I hung my head over the toilet bowl and thought about it, things were actually going pretty well.


	2. Chapter 2

If was first period on a Monday, and nobody wanted to focus. After ten minutes of trying to shout over us, Mr. Cannarella- the Environmental Science teacher- finally managed to herd us back into the lab area to start a mini-lab about tectonic plate interactions; we got graham crackers out of it, so everybody was willing to participate.

"Everybody, pair up with your four o'clock lab partner!" the teacher shouted, sending the class scrambling for the sheet where their four o'clock was written down.

The week before, everyone in the class was told to fill out a clock-shaped diagram with twelve people we would possibly be paired with in the future; QB and Sage were twelve and six respectively, but I didn't know many of the others I'd written down. By some stroke of luck, my number four was Barbara.

"Alright, so this all seems pretty straight foreword," she started, reading over the papers Mr. Cannarella had given us. "Do you want to work with the crackers or-"

"Hey, Barb!" I jumped, almost falling out of my chair; some other guy was standing behind me, laughing quietly at my reaction. Barbara raised an eyebrow, obviously trying not to giggle.

"Hey, Dick. Where's your partner?" Dick held up his clock chart; many of the spaces were empty.

"I don't have one. Cannarella said I could choose a group, do you mind if I work with you?" Barbara waved indifferently, and Dick sat on the stool next to me. He held out his hand, "Dick Grayson, nice to meet you." I just stared at him blankly, not making any move to return the gesture. He looked put off, retracting his hand.

"Valerie Sullivan," I replied quietly. "Pleasure."

"So what're we doing here?" he asked, seemingly dismissing my behavior and gesturing to the various materials strewn out on the lab station.

Dick was an overall agreeable person. He didn't look particularly special, unembellished skin aside; his black hair was combed back, and he had blue eyes with light bags underneath them. He was amusing, always cracking jokes and doing stupid things with the lab materials, but still managing to get all of the work done extremely quickly. He was... interesting.

Because we'd finished the lab so early- there wasn't much to finish anyway, it was just shoving food together- we got first dibs on the large pile of leftover crackers. I was extremely satisfied by this result, and it appeared the others were as well.

"So Valerie, are you in any clubs?" Barbara asked, nibbling on the carbohydrates. I nodded.

"I'm in marching band this semester, and at some point I want to do swimming." I'd taken up swimming after I'd gotten out of the hospital; it was therapeutic. The large pool the school had was extremely inviting, but unless I joined swim team there was no way I'd have any access to it, at least not until the next year. "What about you?" Dick shrugged.

"I'm in Beta club, academic team, and I'm a mathlete." Barbara started laughing, hunched over and pointing at him.

"He, he can't make a sound on any instruments!" The boy in question went slightly pink, shoving Barbara and crossing his arms in denial. I almost smiled.

"You could probably play percussion, but the pit is big enough as it is," I remarked, waving it off.

"Really?" Barbara asked, sitting up. Her eyebrows were knitted together. "I saw the practice last Thursday, and it seemed normal to me." I shrugged again, it could have been normal for a rich kid band.

"Well from my experience, sixteen people is really, really big for a high school pit."

"Fair enough," Barbara replied. "I'm in writers block and academic team. You should join, they seem like clubs you'd like!"

"When do they meet?" I asked, putting the finishing touches on the lab report that the other two had already finished.

"Academic team meets on Wednesdays until 4:15, and writers block is on Fridays until 4:30, so you usually have enough time to get ready for the football game," she chirped. I nodded, storing the memory. It seemed interesting enough to consider.

]/:\\[

Why the hell were we already playing "The Marriage of Figaro?"

All throughout the week, Mr. Fuller had steadily introduced the music we would be playing at the first concert; the pieces we'd already gotten were simple enough- "Dies Irae," "Their Blossoms Down," and "Country Gardens"- but those weren't written by Mozart, and they definitely weren't supposed to be played in one *****. I would be able to play it, sure; that's what the private lessons were for. I'd still need a few dozen hours alone with it, though.

Lunch came quickly after band- the class seemed to go a lot faster when we were actually playing things. As per usual, the three of us sat at our antisocial table, surrounded by people but still somehow avoided by everybody.

Lunch was average- a chicken sandwich plus assorted fruits for me, packed lunches for QB and Sage- and while we ate, I brought up the idea of additional clubs.

"Academic team?" QB echoed, stopping just before she took a bite of her sandwich. "I didn't think that was your thing." I shrugged.

"Like I said, it seems interesting. If I joined, would you come with me?" The siblings gave each other a knowing glance, and I shrugged yet again. It's not like I expected them to agree.

"It's just not something I'm really interested in," Sage replied, "and QB has art club on Wednesdays anyway."

"That's cool. I can just count on Barbara for guidance then, I guess. What about writer's block?" From the basic description Barbara had given me, writers block was just a dozen people sitting in a room and writing for an hour and then sharing.

"THAT seems cool," QB cut in, almost dropping her sandwich. Sage laughed, and nodded xir head vigorously.

"I agree, that's definitely something I could get into." I nodded and gave a small smile.

The conversation stayed on course for all of two minutes; by the end of lunch, we'd somehow strayed to the topic of throwing all trombonists into the sun.

"Oh god, please do!" Barbara groaned, grabbing my shoulders and laughing in my ear. I flinched violently, my vision going purple, and Barbara jumped back.

"Ah, s-sorry, sorry sorry," I mumbled, wrapping my arms around myself and closing my eyes. "Don't touch me, please, just... Please, don't, touch me." I turned towards QB, eyes still closed. I needed to pull myself together and get them to stop glowing before I could open them.

"Shit! I'm so, so sorry!" Barbara apologized, sitting down to my right. I waved her off, still not looking at her.

It took a moment of deep breathing to finally calm down enough to open my eyes. I looked at Barbara, trying my best to smile; it probably didn't work.

"Ah, sorry... Sensory overload, I guess. What's up?" She smiled back, and relief seemed to roll off of her in waves.

"Well, since Mr. Cannarella has a bunch the note sheets we're going to do up on his website, I figured that we could have a study session at my house and get ahead. Want to come?"

"I've got percussion practice after school, so unless you can wait until five I don't think I can, sorry." Monday afternoons were always reserved for drumline and pit; Mr. Fuller probably would have let me skip, but I did enjoy percussion.

"Oh, that's fine!" Barbara chirped. "Dick has his mathlete stuff until around then, so I can just get him to give us a lift!" I shrugged, stuffing all of my trash on a plate.

"Sounds good to me. When would my mom need to get me?"

]/:\\[

"So according to the PowerPoint, methods of soil conservation and fertility include..." Barbara squinted at her phone, scrolling down the screen. "...cover crops, terracing and contour planting, alley cropping, shelter-belts..." Dick and I scribbled down the answers as she spoke, our own phones opened to separate assignments and our papers filled with somewhat legible answers.

It was an efficient way of studying, we'd already finished the major note-taking for Unit 1. "...conservation-tillage, no-till, and minimum-tillage farming."

"Is that all?" Dick asked, clicking his pen repeatedly.

"Yeah," she affirmed. I shifted my papers in some semblance of an order and shoved them in my binder; all of Unit 1 was done, and I still had an hour before my mother was planning to pick me up. I removed the hidden bag of jelly beans from my jacket pocket- I'd been snacking on them all day- and inhaled the remaining colorful candies. For some reason, I couldn't find the will to focus unless there was candy involved; it wasn't healthy, but it did help me get A's.

Because of that remaining hour, Barbara decided to introduce me to the world of Super Smash Bros. She gave me a speedy lesson on the basic game mechanics, and even though I barely understood what she'd told me, I did admit that getting my ass kicked repeatedly was a surprisingly enjoyable experience.  
I as Mewtwo had just been thrown out of the arena for the final time in the match by Zelda, aka Barbara, who immediately went and knocked out Dick, who was playing as Fox, for the third or fourth time. Their battle went on for another two-ish minutes until Fox was once again thrown over the horizon and had joined me in the land of the defeated.

Barbara's victory celebration was cut short when Dick asked for a drink; as soon as she had left the room, Dick let gravity take over, and with a small groan he laid back on the floor, his arms covering his eyes. The room became silent.

I was okay with silence, taking the opportunity to check my phone; all of my new emails were spam, my tumblr dashboard was overflowing with fanart, and Facebook was dull, as per usual. I'd just been about to check my YouTube favorites when Dick's voice rang out from right next to me, without any warning.

"Wha'cha looking at?" he asked. I jumped forwards, shrieking in surprise. When the hell had he gotten there?! I had to squeeze my eyes shut momentarily, waiting for the purple to fade.

"Jesus Christ!" I shouted at him, turning around and scowling. He was on his back, laughing his ass off. Woooonderful.

I sat back down, making sure I could see him in my peripheral vision before opening my phone again.

"YouTube." Dick looked up from his laughing and propped himself up on his elbows.

"Huh?" he questioned.

"You asked what I'm looking at. I'm looking at YouTube." He nodded absently.

"Cool. Who do you watch?" I shrugged.

"Mostly gamers."

"Any specific gamers?" he prodded.

"Sure." Dick huffed in frustration, and I had to fight to hide my smile. He laid back again, pulling out his own significantly more expensive looking phone and scrolling through something quietly.

I took that moment to look over him again; I hadn't been particularly observant in any of our shared classes, but ever since the study session had started something had been bothering me.

I could not read minds. I could extend my own thoughts, use my power to manipulate things, whether that was lifting an object or reaching into someone else's head and distorting their perception; I couldn't descipher the thoughts of others. But even with that, most people projected an emotion, their most prevalent emotion at the moment, and I could pick up on it. It was like an itch, just a tingling feeling at the back of my mind; in big crowds everything was blurred together and I became numb to it. But with Dick, I couldn't feel anything.

In just that moment it might have been normal, I mean, he was just zoning out on his phone. But throughout the entire session I hadn't been able to detect a single thing. It was intriguing, and frankly a bit nervewracking.

"Take a picture, it'll last longer," Dick purred, raising an eyebrow without looking away from his phone.

"No thanks, my phone is filled with enough junk as it is." His only response was a quick bout of laughter, and I gave a small smile. The room fell into a slightly more comfortable silence.

"You know, you look kinda tired," Dick cut in, turning off his phone and sitting back up. "You okay?" I blinked in surprise before shrugging and doing the same.

"I'm fine. The same could be said about you." He mirrored my actions.

"Well, I had a long night. What about you?"

"I've had a few long days." I smiled wryly, "Nights are the easy part."

]/.\\[

 **Bees?_BEEEEEES: video chat. now**

 ** _Bees?_BEEEEEES Calling_**

 ** _Call ended_**

 **Bees?_BEEEEEES: you asshole pick up the video chat**

 ** _Bees?_BEEEEEES Calling_**

 ** _Call ended_**

 **Bees?_BEEEEEES: OH MY FUCKING GOD**

 **Sage Blomberg: Hero just pick up, she's not going to stop until she shows you her chart.**

 **Bees?_BEEEEEES: IM FUCKING PROUD OF THIS CHART I SPENT LIKE TWO HOURS MAKING IT PRETTY AND IF YOU DONT PICK UP THE DAMN PHONE IM GONNA RIP YOUR ARMS OFF AND BEAT YOU WITH THEM**

 ** _Bees?_BEEEEEES Calling_**

 ** _..._**

 ** _..._**

 ** _..._**

 ** _Call ended_**

It wasn't three seconds after hitting the red button that I ended up with a face full of posterboard. I wordlessly threw it behind me- I would admit, it was very artful with its illustrations of characters and color coded arrows and boxes- and typed a quick fuck you to QB.

 **Bees?_BEEEEEES: fight me**

 **casually-turning-purple: no**

 **Bees?_BEEEEEES: did u even look at it**

 **casually-turning-purple: yep**

 **Bees?_BEEEEEES: you only glanced at it didnt you**

 **casually-turning-purple: yep**

 **Bees?_BEEEEEES: will you at least look at it in the morning?**

 **casually-turning-purple: sure**

 **Sage Blomberg: Oh, the depth of your replies, they're *fascinating*!**

 **casually-turning-purple: yep**

 **Sage Blomberg: But in all seriousness, are you okay Valerie? You're worrying me.**

 **casually-turning-purple: yeah, I'm okay. I'm just a bit tired. the study group wore me out**

 **Bees?_BEEEEEES: how was that anyway?**

 **casually-turning-purple: I don't have science homework for the rest of the month**

 **Bees?_BEEEEEES: niiiiice ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)**

 **casually-turning-purple: can I go to sleep now?**

 **Sage Blomberg: Of course! Don't let us hold you up!**

 **Bees?_BEEEEEES: goodnight you asshole**

 **casually-turning-purple: goodnight**

]/:\\[

 **For those that don't understand music terms, when a piece is played in one, it means instead of playing four notes in four beats, we have to play four notes in one beat. If you still don't quite understand, clap you hands four times. Imagine having to play four notes in that amount of time. Now clap your hand once, and imagine playing the same number of notes in the same rhythm, but all in that one clap.**

 **Okay, music lesson over.**


End file.
